PEAK OIL: Going Mainstream

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Divide that by 10

Current proved uranium reserves are 3.1 million tonnes, current yearly use is ~40 000 tonnes. This is about 80 years supply at current use rates but fossil fuels currently produce 9X as much energy as nuclear.

IOW if we were to replace fossil fuels with nuclear tomorrow, using current technology we have about 8 years supply of uranium. This can be extended possibly as much as 10X by using breeder reactors. These do present a nuclear proliferation risk, as their byproducts tend to be weapons grade. In terms of foreign relations this essentially means “only the countries we like can be allowed to generate power, everyone else either needs to buy from us or go without.”

You can get longer periods if you calculate based on “resources” rather then “proved reserves” but that’s generally considers questionable methodology for mineral extraction. “Resources” include minerals that are not economically viable to extract at today’s prices and technology.

You are way off.

The existing depleted uranium stored in the US is good for at least 3,000 years.

There are 4.5 billion tons of uranium suspended in earths seawater and much of that is economically recoverable with current technology. This alone represents more than 50,000 years supply of energy.

And thorium is four or five times more abundant in the earths crust than uranium. This in turn adds tens of thousands more years.

Even the waste ash from coal fired power plants has been shown to have economically recoverable amounts of uranium which gives the waste ash an energy potential dozens of times that of the coal itself.

Any estimate less than a solid 5 digits simply isn't realistic.

And by the time that's all been used up, geological processes will have dredged up new supplies from the Earths mantle. Nuclear energy is literally a renewable resource!

And if the Earths crust is any indication, The Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury could easily extend our reserves into the millions of years.

 

[lomiller]

There are 4.5 billion tons of uranium suspended in earths seawater and much of that is economically recoverable with current technology. This alone represents more than 50,000 years supply of energy.

You are incorrect. It's technically possible to extract Uranium from seawater but no one has ever demonstrated that it's commercially viable at any price.

My links above show how much Uranium the IAEA says we produce and use each year, how much we have found in the ground that is recoverable a (slightly more then) current prices. At the current use rate there is ~100 years worth but only 6% of the worlds energy comes from Nuclear.

 

[tyr_13]

What's terrible about calling a site devoted to "discussions about energy and our future" The Oil Drum?

You're the one talking about peak oil, implying that we need other energy sources, but they name the site after oil. Our future isn't oil.

Can you suggest some sources that you consider unbiased on this subject?

Nope. You'll just deride them as 'government and corporate shills' or some such silliness. You act as if this is the first time I've read your threads.

Smells like a cop-out to me but I've no objection to terminating our conversation!

Speaking of childish...

If you don't know, now, whether or not they can be scaled up then how can you present them as being able to "obsolesce oil"?

Whether they can be scaled up fast enough and which on and/or ones will do it first. Also, which ones should be used. They each do have the potential to obsolesce oil in their fields. If you want to dodge the specific points I'm making, at least make it less obvious.

If there is not enough energy available to sustain a system's demand for it them the system cannot function. Even a small shortfall can have devastating consequences; economic depression, for example, in our case.

This is true. What is your point? The argument is if these are likely as a result of peak oil.

A realistic, reality-based approach to energy security.

Says you. From past experience, I doubt that.

Could you quote the passages you are referring to?

"Oil production must peak; there is a growing probability that it has or will soon peak;" from your second link.

"'Peak oil doomsday' advocate" is a cartoon caricature designed to denigrate not explain.

No. It is the character we've been used to seeing. You know this so don't lie. It is the very reason in the title of this thread is that peak oil is going 'mainstream'. If you didn't know that it wasn't, you wouldn't have named this thread the way you do.

You in fact linked right to articles that perfectly exemplify this.

"We are at the cusp of rapid and severely disruptive changes. From now on the risk of entering a collapse must be considered significant and rising. The challenge is not about how we introduce energy infrastructure to maintain the viability of the systems we depend upon, rather it is how we deal with the consequences of not having the energy and other resources to maintain those same systems. Appeals towards localism, transition initiatives, organic food and renewable energy production, however laudable and necessary, are totally out of scale to what is approaching. "

It's your same old drum. Keep beating it.

There is a huge amount of oil left in the ground, but ever more expensive to extract and process.

You appear to saying, again, that alternatives can be scaled up to replace the functions of oil. What evidence do you have for this? Can you link to any studies supporting your faith?

History.

The oil age fades out when oil no longer dominates social, economic and political reality. Relentlessly declining oil production is likely to do all of these things for decades to come.

Not when what we use oil for has other viable options, which will happen, as it already has been happening, in the coming decades.

Have fun talking to yourself.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

You are incorrect. It's technically possible to extract Uranium from seawater but no one has ever demonstrated that it's commercially viable at any price.

Not true, tests by the Japanese have shown that uranium recovery from seawater can be done for 300$ per kilogram (page 22 of the OECD report).

Three hundred dollars per kilogram is very high, but these were only laboratory tests. True commercial or industrial scale recovery would drastically reduce the price per kilogram.

My links above show how much Uranium the IAEA says we produce and use each year, how much we have found in the ground that is recoverable a (slightly more then) current prices. At the current use rate there is ~100 years worth but only 6% of the worlds energy comes from Nuclear.

I think you're reading your material wrong. Page 67 of the OECD/IAEA report shows projected lifespan of conventional reserves topping out at the 8,500 year mark (seawater uranium and thorium are defined in the report as unconventional).

Anyone who tells you we have less than 30,000 years of nuclear fuel resources either doesn't know what they are talking about or is deliberately holding back information.

 

[JihadJane]

You're the one talking about peak oil, implying that we need other energy sources, but they name the site after oil. Our future isn't oil.

Oil has been the world's main energy source for some time now...

Nope. You'll just deride them as 'government and corporate shills' or some such silliness. You act as if this is the first time I've read your threads.

Rubbish. I've never, in my entire life, called any source or person 'government and corporate shills' or anything remotely similar. Show us your "unbiased" sources!

Speaking of childish...

I mean it, as an adult. You appear to be engaged in serial dodging. If you refuse to back up your assertions on the pretext of how I might respond then you are trolling. Why address my comments at all?

Whether they can be scaled up fast enough and which on and/or ones will do it first. Also, which ones should be used. They each do have the potential to obsolesce oil in their fields.

The question of whether alternatives can be scaled up fast enough is central to the question of whether they can "obsolesce" oil. If they cannot, then they cannot mitigate the consequences of "Peak Oil".

If you cannot present an overall analysis then your claims have no foundation in reality. They are simply faith-based dreams.

This is true. What is your point? The argument is if these are likely as a result of peak oil.

What makes you think they aren't likely? Oil is central to the complex edifice of modern industrial civilization. Oil price spikes trigger recessions.

Says you. From past experience, I doubt that.

It wasn't me who wrote the report.

"Oil production must peak; there is a growing probability that it has or will soon peak;" from your second link.

What has that statement got to do with pretending any of the things you claimed were being pretended?

No. It is the character we've been used to seeing. You know this so don't lie. It is the very reason in the title of this thread is that peak oil is going 'mainstream'. If you didn't know that it wasn't, you wouldn't have named this thread the way you do.

Non-sequitur. The theory of peak oil is now being taken seriously by the mainstream. The thread title has nothing to do with promoting cartoon caricatures.

You in fact linked right to articles that perfectly exemplify this.

"We are at the cusp of rapid and severely disruptive changes. From now on the risk of entering a collapse must be considered significant and rising. The challenge is not about how we introduce energy infrastructure to maintain the viability of the systems we depend upon, rather it is how we deal with the consequences of not having the energy and other resources to maintain those same systems. Appeals towards localism, transition initiatives, organic food and renewable energy production, however laudable and necessary, are totally out of scale to what is approaching. "

It's your same old drum. Keep beating it.

Name-calling is a very lazy way of resonding to a serious analysis.

As an aside, I myself am involved in "transition initiatives".

History.

When was the last fossil fuel binge?

Not when what we use oil for has other viable options, which will happen, as it already has been happening, in the coming decades.

You haven't demonstrated how any of the options you have offered are "viable" as a whole.

 

[lomiller]

Not true, tests by the Japanese have shown that uranium recovery from seawater can be done for 300$ per kilogram (page 22 of the OECD report).

You are completely misrepresenting what is being said in the pdf. It’s secured so I can’t cut and past the quote for full context, but is explicitly says that only very small amounts have ever been produced this way under laboratory conditions and the cost of doing it commercially would be very high, with $300 given as a speculative number of what “very high” means. It is in no way saying there is reason to think it con be done for this rather that’s a bare minimum.

I think you're reading your material wrong. Page 67 of the OECD/IAEA report shows projected lifespan of conventional reserves topping out at the 8,500 year mark (seawater uranium and thorium are defined in the report as unconventional).

You are the one misreading. That is the number based on using an extremely aggressive breeder reactor fuel cycle that can’t be implemented at present, hypothetical resources they think may be discovered someday and only supplies circa 2002 nuclear energy output. (about 1/20 of current total energy production)

Using proved reserves and current cutting edge fuel cycles they state 130 years of 2002 level power generation. That’s less then 25 years worth of nuclear fuel if you plan on replacing fossil fuels and a little over 100 if you use the aggressive fuel cycle that is essentially fast breeder reactors only. IOW this fuel cycle implies that every reactor on the face of the planet is producing weapons grade nuclear material.

 

[stevea]

Divide that by 10

Current proved uranium reserves are 3.1 million tonnes, current yearly use is ~40 000 tonnes. This is about 80 years supply at current use rates but fossil fuels currently produce 9X as much energy as nuclear.

Known ground uranium reserves are 4.5M tonnes (not too far from your figure), but you ignore that 4500M tonnes appear in seawater and some reasonable fraction are likely economically recoverable. The Japanese a have tested a seawater extraction technique that is feasible and not radically expensive. So multiply your pessimistic estimate by perhaps ~1400.

You also ignore that breeder reactors are ~60x more efficient than the current once-though reactors, NOT 10x as you suggest. It's dim-witted that we aren't using breeder reactors and fuel reprocessing.

More realistically Uranium is perhaps just a 3000yr supply of energy, but that's not trivial.


==

Yes the extraction of seawater uranium is estimated at $120-$300/kg and this is 5x to 15x the mining cost., but it still implies we have a good resource for centuries.

======

Goofy theories abt the origins of oil aside, the USA is the 3rd largest oil producer and we will extract current known reserves in ~7 years. China is on a ~13 your pump-out rate and Russia ~23yrs. The Saudis are above 60yrs. So barring some major discovery or the beneficence of Saudis, the US share of it's own oil production will drop from ~40% today to near 0% within a decade and to maintain current US consumption means the US will have to import an additional 10% of current planetary production, and export a corresponding monetary value.

So yes, $250/bbl oil at $10/gallon gasoline is not unrealistic in the not-too-distant future, perhaps worse based on the dollar value.

It's the major unaddressed economic crisis in the short-term future.

If you believe in the shale-oil story then the Canadian Loon is a safe bet.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Crikey mates! Walk carefully now cause you don't want to disturb the wee blighter. This here's the often seen but rarely captured "did-not-read-the-last-post-in-the-thread-which-directly-addresses-everything-I'm-writing poster."

 

[Hindmost]

Uranium costs can triple, but it really doesn't affect the cost of electricity produced due to the energy density of uranium. The cost of a KW-hr would increase less than a 1 cent US.

As I have posted before, the ability to build nuclear plants is limited by industrial capacity and trained people. We just can't build 1000 plants around the world over the next 20--30 years...and it would take that many to put any dent in the world energy profile.

glenn

 

[Nosi]

Not true, tests by the Japanese have shown that uranium recovery from seawater can be done for 300$ per kilogram (page 22 of the OECD report).

Three hundred dollars per kilogram is very high, but these were only laboratory tests. True commercial or industrial scale recovery would drastically reduce the price per kilogram.



I think you're reading your material wrong. Page 67 of the OECD/IAEA report shows projected lifespan of conventional reserves topping out at the 8,500 year mark (seawater uranium and thorium are defined in the report as unconventional).

Anyone who tells you we have less than 30,000 years of nuclear fuel resources either doesn't know what they are talking about or is deliberately holding back information.

Forgive me if I'm talking out my but this sounds suspiciously like an early lab test/version of the computer. Look how cheap those are now. Cell phones are considered a type of PC, they are web enabled for a tiny fortune for pity's sake!

A lot of oil gets tossed into planes and cars.

 

[jimbob]

Lomiller,

Fascinating take on the issue.

I'm not questioning your numbers but I would be very interested if you have the source(s) for your figures on hand.

Cheers,
CS

I remember seeing a CEGB poster whilst doing A-level physics (late 1980's) stating that we had about 50-years of uranium at (then) current usage (or 2000 if converted to plutonium in fast breeder reactors).

This is not inconsistent with Lolmiller's statements.

 

[lomiller]

I remember seeing a CEGB poster whilst doing A-level physics (late 1980's) stating that we had about 50-years of uranium at (then) current usage (or 2000 if converted to plutonium in fast breeder reactors).

This is not inconsistent with Lolmiller's statements.

The two big discrepancies are
a) he is taking projections based on current nuclear power generation and imply they are applicable to how long those reserves would last if we increased that by 10X or 20X.
b) he is looking at speculative reserves that may or may not exist, and worse looking at a small amount of Uranium extracted in a lab and extrapolating that to wide scale production.

If you want to take a similar approach look at unproved and technically feasible supplies of crude oil there are something like 8 trillion barrels out there between tar sand, oil sands etc. IIRC that’s something like 15X what we have used so far.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

You are the one misreading. That is the number based on using an extremely aggressive breeder reactor fuel cycle that can’t be implemented at present, hypothetical resources they think may be discovered someday and only supplies circa 2002 nuclear energy output. (about 1/20 of current total energy production)

I think you are misreading the entire discussion thread. The topic here is "peak oil", the end of the oil age. We know it's running out. We need something to replace it, not simply add a few percent to it. You dismiss the long estimates of nuclear energies lifespan on the grounds that it would be "extremely aggressive" but how are we supposed to discuss replacing the planets #1 energy source if we are not implicitly assuming an aggressive stance?

And let's talk about "aggressive" resource exploitation for a moment. I live in Alberta, Canada. "The Saudi Arabia of the North" (we have better skiing and no death penalty for having a beer), Americas single biggest foreign supplier of oil. And it's all because of what you describe as "extremely aggressive" resource recovery (Gumboot did a great write up on this in the 9/11 CT section) . More than a hundred years ago, at the dawn of the oil age, no one ever thought that we would be digging up dirt with earth movers the size of apartment buildings and blasting it with high-pressure steam to get stuff that technically isn't really oil.

In fact, at one point, the United States Government even agreed to provide a 9 kiloton nuclear weapon to Canadian researchers in a test project to blast the oil out of the rocks and dirt (cooler heads eventually prevailed).

How's that for "extremely aggressive"?

Oil was originally predicted to run out years ago. But it hasn't because we have gotten "extremely aggressive". There's no reason to assume we won't do the same with nuclear energy.

Using proved reserves and current cutting edge fuel cycles they state 130 years of 2002 level power generation. That’s less then 25 years worth of nuclear fuel if you plan on replacing fossil fuels and a little over 100

And more than 50,000 years if we stop farting around and get serious.

if you use the aggressive fuel cycle that is essentially fast breeder reactors only.

Do you even know what a breeder reactor is? First, all reactors breed. A significant portion of the power from a conventional power reactor comes from the breeding of fertile U²³⁸ into Pu²³⁹ and subsequent fissioning of the plutonium. Second, fast breeder reactors are specifically designed and optomized to turn fertile isotopes into fissile ones, they produce more fuel than they consume. Building breeder reactors doesn't make sense unless you use them to produce fuel for conventional reactors.

IOW this fuel cycle implies that every reactor on the face of the planet is producing weapons grade nuclear material.

No, actually, it doesn't. Weapons grade material is either 90ish percent U²³⁵ or Pu²³⁹. Partially spent fuel that you will want to breed to send back to the power reactor will be less than 2% U²³⁵. Nothing is going to come out of a reactor at "weapons grade". To make it weapons grade, you would have to seperate out the fission products and any Americium and Curium. Then you would need to separate again all the U²³⁶ and U²³⁸, and then get as much of the Pu²³⁹ as you can while leaving behind the Pu²⁴⁰ and Pu²⁴¹.

The production of weapons grade material is a very deliberate, painstaking and involved process which in turn is why we've spent most of the last ten years harping about North Korea and Irans bomb programs instead of suddenly waking up one morning to news that they exploded test nukes without any apparent warning.

 

[JihadJane]

And let's talk about "aggressive" resource exploitation for a moment. I live in Alberta, Canada. "The Saudi Arabia of the North" (we have better skiing and no death penalty for having a beer), Americas single biggest foreign supplier of oil. And it's all because of what you describe as "extremely aggressive" resource recovery (Gumboot did a great write up on this in the 9/11 CT section) . More than a hundred years ago, at the dawn of the oil age, no one ever thought that we would be digging up dirt with earth movers the size of apartment buildings and blasting it with high-pressure steam to get stuff that technically isn't really oil.

Yes, we’re getting desperate and once again trashing the envirnoment and gobbling up precious resources (water) for very temporary and expensive gain. Aggression is quite often like that. Dumb, unthinking and destructive!

Oil was originally predicted to run out decades ago.

Who by? Linkies please.

 

[lomiller]

The two big discrepancies are

"His" in this case being Sword of Truth

 

[mike3]

"The key to understanding the implications of peak oil is to see it not just directly through its effect on transport, petrochemicals, or food say, but its systemic effects. A globalising, integrated and co-dependant economy has evolved with particular dynamics and embedded structures that have made our basic welfare dependent upon delocalised 'local' economies. It has locked us into hyper-complex economic and social processes that are increasing our vulnerability, but which we are unable to alter without risking a collapse in those same welfare supporting structures. And without increasing energy flows, those embedded structures, which include our expectations, institutions and infrastructure that evolved and adapted in the expectation of further economic growth cannot be maintained."

[My emphasis]

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6309

So then it seems that we'll have to transition to a zero growth system.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Yes, we’re getting desperate and once again trashing the envirnoment and gobbling up precious resources (water) for very temporary and expensive gain. Aggression is quite often like that. Dumb, unthinking and destructive!

Except with nuclear energy, we already have thousands of years worth of energy supplies already mined and refined and just waiting to be fed into the proper reactor.

No Earth-rape required.

Lomiller, for whatever reason, wants you to think that nuclear energy will run out almost as soon as oil will without some kind of technology that is at best only theoretical.

This is just not true. The physics behind breeding Th²³² and U²³⁸ and extending our supply well into the tens of thousands of years is well under stood. He writes off unconventional fuels like Thorium U²³⁸ not knowing (at least as far as I can tell) that their viability has already been proven.

All of the Plutonium that's been used to create the worlds nuclear arsenal was bred in a reactor out of natural U²³⁸. We know it's viable because it's already been done for decades.

Who by? Linkies please.

I flubbed up. I was thinking "years" and typed out "decades". You caught me in an error. Congratulations.

 

[mike3]

(to JihadJane) So what would be "in scale" to what is approaching?

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

"His" in this case being Sword of Truth

And your discrepancy is acknowledging that our conventional supplies can last for thousands of years but arbitrarily deciding that it won't happen without giving a reason why.

But hey... what would a guy like me know about nuclear energy?

 

[mike3]

Yes, we’re getting desperate and once again trashing the envirnoment and gobbling up precious resources (water) for very temporary and expensive gain. Aggression is quite often like that. Dumb, unthinking and destructive!

So what would be a smart, thinking, and constructive way of doing it that produces more permanent (though expensive/cheap, I dunno) gains? If we were to start doing everything right right now, what would you think the world would be like after the oil age is over? What's the best it could possibly be after the end of oil?